O.S.V.E.A – The Five Components Of A Great Golf Shot

You can always tell when a player I work with is in a tournament from the amount of iPhone battery I have left by midday!

I spend the majority of my coaching life telling players being fixated on their score and winning is counterproductive, especially when it causes you to lose control of your emotions. I talk daily about creating the best possible conditions for success and letting go of outcomes in the process. Yet, on tournament days, I watch player’s scores like a hawk! So much so, that if you call me after 1 pm, you will be directed to my voice mail as my phone will have died!

This has not changed since I left the UK. It has actually increased as I now frantically check Europro, Challenge tour and European tour scores ,as well as all the US based Junior tours in which the Bishops Gate Golf Academy students are playing.

In addition to looking out for scores, I am always patrolling my Email inbox with care. When your a mind coach and you work remotely with players, your Emails tend to say one of two things:

1. I played awesome–thank you!or2. HELP!!

Last week, after killing my phone checking the European Challenge tour scores, I received an Email from Chris Hanson that would fall into category 2, HELP!

Chris is a model professional and a gentleman of the game. He is also a model student and great competitor. We chatted for 30 minutes and my favorite part of the call was saying hello to his beautiful little girl and telling her I now live near Minnie Mouse!!

The other hot topic on the call was OSVEA. Chris is based at the PGA Academy Oulton Hall in England where European tour coach Mark Pearson employed me to coach OSVEA, the five components of a golf shot, to Chris and other exciting talents such as TrackMan’s combined world record holder, Daniel Gavins. OSVEA stands for Options, Selection, Visualization, Execution, and Acceptance and makes up the five components of a successful golf shot.

Chris felt that since my departure he had slipped away from using his OSVEA routine that had brought him success, and in his words, ‘was calling me so I could tell him he needs to do it’! This was and will probably be the only time I ever disagree with Chis. I told Chris it was not up to me to tell him what to do, it was up to him to realize he is his own best coach!

I then sat back as Chris revisited his five shot tour school victory and relayed OSVEA routine scores from tournaments like the South African open. At that point in his career, Chris was so process driven he scored his OSVEA routine as well as the number of shots on each hole. A perfect routine throughout the hole would be 10 points.

Chris even renamed his OSVEA process ‘story book’. Chris recalled his best results were when he was deepest into his story book, feeling every shot was a line of a story, every hole a paragraph and every round a chapter!

He recalled the more imaginative the name given to each shot, the more kinesthetically charged the practice swing became and the more positive self talk he generated throughout the swing. This kept the inner chimp under control and enabled his body to flow and produce technically sound swings.

Chris diligently wrote down all the information he was relaying and produced his own plan which he entitled ‘home work’ that would lead to an increase in performance.

Two days after Chis became his own best coach and reignited his passion for the OSVEA process, I was again running my battery down checking his progress in the British Open qualifying. It was probably only the five hour time difference that meant my phone remained charged long enough for me to see that he had finished -6 and secured a place via a playoff.

I am very pleased for Chris, not only because he has realized a life goal, but more so because he has become his own best coach and enabled himself to create the focus and energy he needs to reach peak performance levels.

I am now off to the Apple Store as I need to purchase a new supercharged battery pack for my phone so I can follow Chris and his ‘story book’ into the Open on the 17th of July!